


Thorny Pain

by posingasme



Category: Supernatural
Genre: F/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-02-11
Updated: 2015-02-13
Packaged: 2018-03-11 15:45:44
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 2
Words: 3,322
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/3331061
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/posingasme/pseuds/posingasme
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Meg and her unicorn. What actually happened when they were left at that facility together?</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. The Days in White

It would be inaccurate to say that Castiel had been comatose at any point, let alone the entire time. None of the humans would be able to tell just how much his mind was actually processing, but Meg became more aware every day.

After all, angels did not sleep.

It was quiet on night shift, certainly. A warrior demon was unused to the stillness in the dark. She had gotten an apartment two minutes from the facility, and had spent most of her free time in a perpetual state of dozing. Demons did not sleep, but war-weary ones did rest, and Meg had long since needed that. Lucifer loyalists were an endangered species. The crossroads meek had inherited the Earth and everything below it, and they had no use for the old guard who had wanted their place in Paradise. Meg was yesterday's trash.

Meg. How long had she been Meg? Too long to use any of her old names now. Her first name had been buried her first years, blown away like black smoke. She had abandoned everything human like slipping out of an ill-fitting garment. This thing she was, that she had been for so long now, that was her true form. Names did not matter. Meg knew what she was.

She knew what that creature in white was too. She knew he should scare the holy Hell out of her. Hadn't he been the one who had caused her to leap into that ring of fire, then had used her meat suit and her agony to bridge his way to the other side? Angels. Arrogant things.

But there had been something about this one. She wanted to think he was more like Lucifer, her lord and her mission, that perhaps he wore Heaven's leash even more askew than he wore that awful tie. The idea made her smile as she pretended to care for his vessel's needs.

She had been assigned to the non-responsive patients from the beginning; it served her purposes in being able to keep an eye on the angel, and it kept her from having to interact with anyone else, except minimally.

After so long causing pain, she had reacted with disgust at caring for these bags of meat. But it was necessary to keep up appearances. She was a student of Alistair, a chosen daughter of Azazel. But that was before. Before the Morningstar had failed them all, had left them running in the cold instead of sipping at nectar in Heaven, or whatever went on up there. Now she sucked it up and did her job. And after a while? She didn't even really mind it.

The best part of the day should have been the time she went home to continue licking her wounds, to sulk and doze. But more and more, she found herself sitting in the angel's room reading well past dawn, when her shift had ended.

It was strange when it occurred to her that the creature was good company, that she was no longer simply doing a task she had set for herself. Winchesters be damned, by the way, she wasn't doing this for them. She did it for herself.

And maybe a little bit for the badass rebel angel. A little bit.

When she found herself thinking of a silent celestial as good company, a realization came to her. Angels don't sleep. They don't slip away, not like those humans in her charge. Castiel was still there somewhere behind those dull blue eyes which were sometimes open and sometimes closed, and he knew she was there too.

Meg had cleared her throat awkwardly. "You there, Clarence?"

Of course there was no response. It had not crossed her mind to talk to him before, but she found she liked the idea. Who the hell else was she supposed to talk to? Dean had accused her of loving the sound of her own voice once, and she had not had anyone to speak to for a long time, certainly not anyone who could be told anything. So even if Castiel was not going to respond, and maybe he couldn't, she was still going to talk to him.

"Okay, Clarence," she murmured. "This is how it's going to be. I sit here all night and guard you from who knows what might be looking for a feathery part-time deity, and you get to sit there and look pretty while I'm doing it, and I am going to talk to you now and then. That's the easiest gig you've had this side of the apocalypse, so I suggest you take it."

As there was no flicker of understanding from the creature, she decided he had agreed to his role.

She had not spoken again the rest of the night, and at dawn, she skittered out right on time.

It was when she was dozing in her bed that it happened. She was not truly asleep, of course, but she was not awake either, and the voice startled her badly. She was gripping an angel killing blade in her right hand and her left was ready to pull someone's esophagus out their nostrils with her particular power. She was afraid.

But the voice was soft.

"You watch over my rest, demon. Who do you think watches over yours?"

Her meat suit ran cold suddenly. She thrashed awake, kicking at nothing, blade in hand, panting.

It was a very long time before she could close her eyes again.

The next night, she smiled sweetly at the desk clerk, but inside, there was a whirl of black smoke wanting to fly. She made her rounds, cleaning humans and making them comfortable, administering chemicals and stealing a few. She always saved Castiel's room for last, and she avoided it steadfastly tonight.

When finally she had no more excuse not to, she stood in the doorway of the angel's sanctum and took a breath.

"Clarence?" She waited, but nothing came. After a moment spent feeling ridiculous, she sat in her usual spot. She would pretend to clean the vessel later, when others might wander by, but for now, they were alone. "Had a sweet dream this afternoon, Clarence. Some little tree topper came to chat me up. Said something kinky about watching me sleep, but nothing much more than that. Angels, right? They got no sense of dirty talk."

Meg passed the time by alternating between reading aloud from her magazine and telling a non-responsive angel about how she had fallen in with Azazel, how he had told her great things were coming, that nothing could stand in the way of their destiny.

She snorted. "Big daddy Az didn't count on a couple of plaid punks and a sidekick angel, did he? We all thought we knew what we were signing up for. Everybody had a role to play, even that Ruby whore. Gotta tell you, Clarence, I totally did not see that one coming. She's some kind of legend among the Lucifer purists now because she slutted around with a Winchester for a while and made him do naughty things. Please. Like we haven't all ridden a Winchester at some point."

She looked up from her gossip rag when she sensed a change in the being before her. She watched the angel uneasily.

"Hey there, Cas. You thinking of waking up and running that dumb look off your pretty face? 'Cause I gotta say, I'd feel a lot better about that if I knew you weren't going to hit the ground smiting."

But there was no reaction, and after a few moments, she relaxed, and began reading an article about astrological matches to Castiel.

"What's your sign, Clarence?" she pondered. "Bet you're a Virgo. Leo, maybe. Nah. You're a Virgo. Gotta be." She looked up again. "Were there stars before you were born? Hatched? Whatever? Or did those come after? Doesn't matter. Everybody has a sign."

Castiel's sign could be "merge left" for all she knew.

It was a fun thought to entertain, and she began to snicker as she wondered what angel merging would even look like.

Castiel simply continued to stare at the things no one else could see.

***


	2. Broken and Abused

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Meg senses Castiel closer to the surface, even as his mind is splintering.

Days went by without her bothering to count them, but gradually, she realized she was getting comfortable. That bothered her, and she brought it up to her only friend, poor dead Castiel, who was sitting mute and locked inside his own head. Or...some tax accountant's head.

"I've been on the run so long, Clarence, I don't even know what resting should feel like. It's hard to know if I've let my guard down too much or just the right amount."

The blue eyes were open now, staring blandly.

Meg sighed. "You're not very helpful, are you? Not going to tell me if I'm right that you're in there somewhere wide awake and that you come sniffing around in my head while I'm sleeping?"

Castiel blinked very slowly, like a cat who was carefully ignoring someone.

"Okay, Castiel. Have it your way. You know what would be fun? Let me tell you a different kind of story today, little cloud hopper. This one is called 'the demon bitch who slapped the angel until he woke up.' Don't worry. It doesn't have a sappy, happy ending. Pretty sure the angel bites it in the end."

"End."

Meg was on her feet in an instant. Her heart (or the starlet's heart she had borrowed) leapt into her throat, and she stared suspiciously at Castiel.

"End," the deep voice ground out again.

She narrowed her eyes. "Clarence? I don't scare easy, but you're kind of freaking me out. You wanna at least look at me or something? You trying to wake up or die on me?"

The next utterance was one dry syllable.

"Never took Enochian in school, Clarence, if that's what you're puking out at me." Her hand was on her knife hidden inside her white coat.

But Castiel said nothing else, and did not move. She watched him for a very long time before releasing her blade grip and sitting back down. But she did not relax the rest of the night.

In the morning, she reminded the clerk of Castiel's directive. "You know if he wakes, I get the first call. Right?"

"Who?"

She looked into the man's eyes and considered what it would feel like to look at the world from inside him. But she just smiled. "Clarence," she said without meaning to.

The man blinked.

Meg took a breath and the smile tightened. "No. Steve. Sorry. The John Doe they call Steve."

"You call him Clarence?"

"He just...he reminded me of a guy named Clarence. Look, I just wanted to be sure everyone here knows I'm his contact."

"Of course. He's a John Doe. You're every John Doe's first call."

She grit her white teeth and nodded. "Of course," she repeated as pleasantly as she could manage.

If she wasn't busy next week, maybe she would kill this man. Just for old time's sake.

At the apartment, Meg dressed in her tee shirt and climbed into bed. She had come to like the sensation of enjoying a bath and sliding into blankets. Warrior demons so rarely took such luxuries, since they were unnecessary. The crossroads sleaze tended to take meticulous care of their flesh suits.

Meg had ever enjoyed choosing a pretty face and an athletic and pleasing body, but she had never liked the maintenance. She nearly always cut the hair off as soon possible. For some reason, she had not done so this time. The former occupant had vacated the premises just as she had needed a new suit. It had been convenient. She had never taken an empty body before, and she had become attached to it. It was the first one to feel like it fit in a very long time. And it was why she was still going by Meg. This girl had a name too, but she didn't feel like the body belonged to anyone else.

Perhaps that was why she felt more human in it. Not human, not really. She would never be that again. But less demonic. Less demonic and more...more Meg.

Whoever that was.

***

Castiel dream walked through the lake of black blood, beyond the shards of shattered souls, and past the thick fog of leaked Grace. Brothers and sisters, some he had known personally, others he had only ever felt before, were strewn everywhere, and he stepped lightly over the bodies on the ground, ducked under those hanging from above. The accusing glare of the dead eyes of humans and vessels alike stared at him as he made his way to his destination.

He did not stop to mourn anyone in particular, though he was heavy with the grief along the way. A whole family striking one another down, consuming and slaughtering each other as though they had never been one Host...He would never walk without the weight of grief again.

But walk, he did.

He had not walked enough in his long lifetime. He wondered if he would have walked more if he had known he would at one time in his life be deprived of his wings, or might he have walked less had he known?

He might have flown now, but it did not truly matter since somewhere, his vessel was still in a white room staring at nothing. The walking was an exercise in mental preparation, so that by the time he worked his way to his demon, he would be capable of communication at a level she would understand. First, he had to walk through the seeping graveyards and scarred battlegrounds inside his own spirit.

He had thought of her as his demon for a while now. He could not have determined when he began to think of her that way.

The way she spoke to him these days...it sometimes penetrated his fog. He could at least hear her voice. Melodic, sarcastic, sardonic, captivating. Even as he was feeling every horror which had ever been inflicted upon every human and angel who had aided him or fought against him, or, worst of all, had simply been in his way, he could yet hear her voice.

Darkness meant nothing to an angel as old as light. So he had thought. But nights in that white room were darker than dark, and fear was still a new sensation for him. Meg's voice pulled a small part of him and anchored it in that darkness.

_Demons fear not the dark, Castiel. They fear only us. Only the light._

Michael's words came to him again and again, a powerful whisper through the death throes of his nightmares and memories.

His demon feared not the darkness, not the night, not the deafening silence, nor the screams. His demon, his beautiful, melodic caretaker, feared only him. Something was very wrong about that. His demon should fear nothing, and least of all him. Not after she had dedicated herself to guarding him in his vulnerability. It was unacceptable. He had conspired with the King of Hell. He was not above comforting a lesser demon charged with his protection.

Meg was no lesser demon, for she was too important for that. But she was less a demon, and that was not the same thing.

Less a demon, more...more Meg. That's all.

Castiel shook his head, trying to clear the fog just a little. His thoughts often made very little logical sense, and this was probably one of those times.

Without realizing it, he had reached his destination, had crossed through enough of the mental anguish and unreality to use his angelic ability to slip into Meg's mind.

It was a dark place, certainly, but far more ordered than he might have expected. Meg carried baggage within that black smoke, but it was packed neat and clean and stored in the back. He admired that, considering that his own headspace was cluttered with black sludge, dried blood and slices of guilt at all sharp angles.

It was darker here than anywhere Castiel had been except for the blackness of space itself. But it was not a threatening darkness like the nights Meg's voice comforted him through. He was welcome here. He could feel it strongly. Meg did not resent his company.

"Demon," he breathed into her mind. He had learned to speak softly so as not to startle her into throwing up defenses.

He could feel her slow, silky smile. "Clarence. Come for my bedtime prayers?"

The angel felt himself frown. "You do not pray."

"Neither do you," she smirked.

"That is true."

"You ever going to call me Meg?"

"Will you ever call me Castiel?"

"I don't care what you call me. But you can call me Meg. Or are you afraid you'll forget what I am? Forget your nurse has pretty black eyes?"

He did not know how to respond, because he did not know why he kept calling her that. Perhaps she was right. Perhaps he was trying to place himself far enough above her that he remembered his place. But broken and battered Castiel had no right to that place above her. Certainly not simply because he was an angel and she a demon. No one knew better than he how vile an angel could be, and he was learning to his surprise just how loyal a demon could be.

"Still with me, Castiel?"

The voice was lacking a bit of its usual arrogant lilt. He smiled to hear it. "You'd like me to stay, Meg?"

"I'd like a lot of things." She was quiet for a moment. Then she murmured, "Tell me about Heaven, Clarence. Tell me about the Paradise I'm supposed to be in right now. The one they promised me."

So Castiel talked, and for the first time since he was Emmanuel, he felt nearly at ease. He did not have to talk about the horrors of Heaven, that which had been dealt by himself as well as others. Instead, he talked about peace and contentment.

Meg was quiet. Then she laughed, though it felt bitter. "Thanks for making it sound so boring, Halo. Almost makes me glad we didn't make it."

But he knew she was forcing her humor. He sighed. "Heaven is...less than perfect. Surely you would prefer something different for yourself."

A surprised snort came from her then. "Angel, are you really trying to make me feel better about being a damned soul?"

He supposed he was.

"Demons are demons because we sucked at being humans, Clarence. Because we screwed up somewhere along the line and couldn't find anyone to forgive us. Don't pity me, big guy. I'm exactly what I deserve to be."

"You are Meg."

The silence that followed allowed him time to feel his exhaustion. He would not be able to hang on to this reality much longer.

Finally, she laughed again, uneasily. "What is Meg?"

His mind was already diffusing, scattering. He struggled to hold himself there in her mind, in the only place anything made any sense. "Meg is loyalty, broken and abused beauty. Too strong for pity, too hurt for contempt."

There was a trembling, and he was unable to determine if it originated with him or with her.

"I don't like poetry, Clarence. Put up or shut up."

He smiled softly, but it was part grimace. "Thank you for what you are doing, my caretaker."

"It serves my purposes for now."

He gave a small nod. His skittering mind suddenly pictured her lips, and he did not know why. "I'm grateful it does."

It was all he could manage for this night, and he tried to reach out, to touch her gently on the face, but merely brushed it as he faded back into his own mind, to find his sinister memories awaiting him.

***


End file.
